Law firms large and small and across all practice areas have one thing in common: the difficult task of managing leads, cases, clients and staff. Asking yourself these three simple questions may reveal some of your legal practice’s underlying inefficiencies – all of which you can target with a case management software or client management system.

Do Important Documents Get Lost in the Shuffle?

In the legal industry, it is of critical importance that case files, personal documents, and sensitive materials not go missing. If you’ve found that your firm has lost more than one important document, going paperless with a case management software is an easy way to keep your law office more organized.

A paperless law practice means the end of searching through countless documents to find the right file; every case, client, and matter is easily searchable within a client relationship management system. Some legal CRMs even allow users to manage case leads and contacts associated with each case.

By centralizing information in one place, you’re able to create a central repository of all lead, case, matter, and contact details. Since these are all remotely accessible, you’ll have access to the entire resources of your firm – anytime, anywhere.

“What about all the forms I mail to my client to sign?” you may ask. Electronic signature tools like EchoSign allow law firms to electronically send and receive documents without ever having to lick a stamp. Not only will adopting this practice eliminate the risk of losing items in the mail, but your firm may see an increase in your packet signed rate.

Next to the combined costs of paper, printing, and the time it takes to search through extensive case files, adopting a legal case and client management system is an alternative attorneys can’t afford to ignore.

Is Staff Accountability a Frequent Concern?

Have you found yourself unsure of what your staff actually does on a daily basis? Has miscommunication lead your staff to miss important meetings or deadlines? If your firm has a dozen employees or more, it can often become challenging to coordinate among departments, let alone know whether or not your staff is putting in the effort to sign you more cases. Even the best employees may not be as efficient as possible.

The best case management software will not only help you better manage cases and clients, but your firm’s staff and methodologies, too. A comprehensive CRM system will effectively create a digital headquarters for your personnel. When you’re able to properly coordinate communication and responsibility, no deadline, meeting, or task will slip through the cracks.

At eGenerationMarketing, our case and lead management software, eLuminate, even allows you to assign tasks to other users and track their results. This makes it easy to delegate tasks to your staff, whether it’s asking your paralegal to send a lead a retainer package, or reminding your coworkers of a meeting an hour ahead of time. You can pinpoint inefficiencies in any department of your firm by consulting historic task data. Among other metrics, you will be able to see which staff members contact more leads, which send retainer packages on time, and which sign the most cases.

Is Your Law Partner Also Acting Head of IT?

When running a bustling law firm, the value of a trained and dedicated IT Department can easily become an afterthought. If a critical member of your staff is also your makeshift computer guy, you’re diverting valuable skill away from your legal practice. It may also seem appealing to handle data in-house on internal servers rather than with a hosting company, but this option is time consuming at best, costly at worst.

When you use a legal case management software, you’ve got a dedicated tech team in your corner. This entails user support to help you maximize your account, as well as software developers that resolve any bugs with immediate attention. Forget slow software installations; with eLuminate, new features and functionalities update seamlessly to your account as we release them.

Of equal importance, however, is that your client and firm information remains secure. Along with data encryption, firewalls, user authentication, and real-time server audits, web-based case and management software protects your data with a full force of complex, layered security. With all that protection, your case and client information may well be at greater risk in the corner file cabinet.

eLuminate

With its dedicated, growing following, eLuminate has been a longstanding product at eGeneration. Created to support our network of attorneys that receive Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, Employment Law case leads, eLuminate is a highly customizable solution for large and small law firms alike.

To schedule a free tutorial to learn how eLuminate, our cloud-based case and lead management software, can help track, manage, and analyze cases and clients at your legal practice, reach out to us at 617.800.0089 or read our eLuminate FAQ.